If you were ever in the situation like me, and the display wasn’t turning on. You might have realised that you have actually bricked your laptop while upgrading BIOS.
The good news is, it’s still fixable and you don’t need solder anything.
You will still need some tools and the basic skill to open up the laptop’s back cover.
It’s the square 8 pin chip slightly above the m.2 slot, I think. You don’t need to de-solder it.
I bought this kit, it comes with a ch341a programmer and test clip: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product…UTF8&
Follow this tutorial to set the programmer and test clip up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2…2B0
Here are my steps:
-Run Ubuntu (or any distro you like) on VMWare on a functional PC and install flashrom via terminal (sudo apt-get install flashrom)
-Open up a web browser and download the BIOS firmware FOR YOUR DEVICE from the Motile Support Website (link located in the wiki)
-Extract the ROM file from the downloaded .zip file. In my case I have the M141 so, I extracted the PF4PU1FN105.ROM file from one of the sub-folders nested in that archive
-Connect the programmer to your PC. VMWare will prompt you to connect the USB to the host or virtual machine. Select virtual machine
-Crack open your lappy then attach the test clip to the BIOS chip (8 pin chip slightly above the first M.2 slot) and make sure the metal contacts are touching each pin.
-Open Terminal and type: sudo flashrom –programmer ch341a_spi -r new.bin
–If flashrom detects that the connected chip is a GD25LQ128, proceed to the next step If it gives you crap about being unable to detect anything, unplug the programmer from your PC, reattach the test clip to the BIOS chip, plug the programmer back in, then run the command again.
-Close the terminal and open another instance.
-CD into the path of the extracted .ROM file
-Type in: sudo flashrom –programmer ch341a_spi -w <.ROM file> (In my case I ran sudo flashrom –programmer ch341a_spi -w PF4PU1FN105.ROM)
-Let the process run, it should take up to 30 min to complete.
-Assuming everything went well and the verification was successful, screw the back plate on, power on your laptop, wait 5-10 seconds, and then you should be met with Motile-THX splash screen. You’ll then be taken to the BIOS setup page soon after.
-Save and Exit out of there.
-Done.